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Monday, May 23, 2011

Recipe: French onion soup

It's been a bit cold of late (yes, I know my southern friends would tell me that Brisbane doesn't get cold, but I have felt the chill), and nothing satisfies more than a big bowl of warm soup when it’s cold outside.

For some reason, I had a hankering for french onion soup, I'm not really sure why as I'd never had it before in my life. A quick search around the internet and I had a collection of recipes that provided enough inspiration for me to go ahead and do my own thing.

Here's the one that I based my version off. It was already vegan (traditionally french onion soup is made on a beef stock), but I wanted to make sure I had enough to eat now and for plenty of leftovers so I changed it up a bit.

4 large onions (mix of red and brown), sliced in half and then sliced thinly

1.5L stock (I used stock powder, so I added that with boiling water – see step 2)

4 cloves garlic, chopped

Pepper to taste

1 Tbsp olive oil

4 Tbsp cornflour

1. Heat oil in pan, and sauté onions until lightly brown. Add garlic and sauté a bit longer, then turn down heat, cover and cook for 30-40 minutes until mixture is all soft and wilty (stir occasionally).

2. Add cornflour and stock powder to coat onions, then add boiling water (this is so it doesn’t go lumpy when you’re thickening it – if you’re using liquid stock, just add the cornflour first, then the stock on top). Bring slowly to the boil.

3. Simmer until thickened to preference then season to taste.

Traditionally, this would be served in a hollowed out bread bowl with some melted cheese, however, I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of having such a carbohydrate laden dinner, so I deviated from the norm with a plain bowl filled with soup. I don’t add a lot of salt to my cooking, so for an extra flavour and vegetable boost, I served the soup on top of some kale chips which were lightly sprayed with olive oil and sea salt. Delicious!!!

Next time I’ll probably dice the onions and up the flavour with some herbs and spices as this version was a little bit too subtle for my tastes.